


five people Zoe Alleyne Washburne never fell in love with

by actonbell



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5409482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actonbell/pseuds/actonbell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretty much does what it says on the tin, only it's actually six because I couldn't bear to leave people out. Post-<i>Serenity.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	five people Zoe Alleyne Washburne never fell in love with

Zoe never fell in love with Mal. People always assumed he'd loved her at some point, or she'd loved him, or that they'd at least slept together, but none of that had ever happened. He was a fine-looking man and there was nothing _wrong_ with him -- well, except a desperately broken heart, but there were worse things to be wrong with a man -- but they had kissed the once, after they knew they were the only ones left living, and they'd both felt it, and just as she'd thought _No this is wrong_ he'd stepped back and said, voice as pained as his face, "Zoe, I can't -- I don't -- everyone I've ever loved I've wound up losing. I can't lose you." She'd thought about it, nodded, and said, "No, sir, you're right," quiet but calm. "Besides, I just don't think I could get used to someone calling me 'sir' in bed," he'd added, trying to make her laugh, and she'd raised her eyebrows and said back, "Oh, that's what you think -- no, sorry, too late to find out now, isn't it? Sir?"

Zoe never fell in love with Jayne. He was certainly a fine specimen of a man if you preferred grading them like beef, prime or scraps, which she didn't, but he was dumber than two sacks of rocks and thought -- no, _knew_ \-- he wasn't. Besides, he was like a little kid. She hadn't known him two weeks before he was pestering her every five minutes for a shooting match, and although Mal said _No_ every time he heard about it in that clipped _By God I will space you both_ tone, she'd finally given in out of boredom and beaten him so thoroughly by the last round his aim was wildly off, he was so incredulous. She had a quick moment of panic thinking she'd have to watch her back a while after that, but the baffled resentment that flashed on his face was replaced with admiration and he asked her if she'd like to hold Vera. She'd forgotten that was the name of his gun and said "Oh no, but thank you."

Zoe never fell in love with River. She never looked at River and saw the girl nobody else did, instead of _trouble_ or _sister_ or _burden_ or _refugee_ or _geniu_ s or _weapon._ She never once joined in a game of jacks with Kaylee and River and nearly beat them both even when they teamed up, never sat on the edge of River's bed, when she'd had a nightmare and Simon was drawn and exhausted and couldn't be woken up even for _mei-mei,_ to brush her hair and tell her what it was like growing up on a spaceship instead of on a planet. The kind of life she'd had, she'd never wanted a child, and she never thought of Kaylee and River as the twin daughters she'd never had a chance to have, not once.

Zoe never fell in love with Simon. _Jayne_ was more her type than Simon, and if she and Jayne were the last two people left in the 'verse she'd devote herself to a life of knitting. There wasn't anything left of Simon to fall in love with, anyway; all of him was focused on the event horizon of River's madness, struggling not to free himself -- he never cared about that -- but her, even though River and her power and the gravity well she'd been turned into were all the same thing by now. Jayne had his greed, Inara and Book had whatever secrets had driven them out here, Mal had his lost battles, and Simon had River. (Wash was what made her dangerous, because she'd do what she had to, to protect him, and they both knew that. And so did everyone else.) Only someone like Kaylee could fall in love with Simon, and so she did.

Of all the people she never fell in love with, Zoe didn't fall in love with Kaylee the hardest. She never wondered what it would be like to be bubbly instead of terse, sunny instead of glum, cheerful instead of professionally pessimistic. She never wondered what it would be like to hear that laughter first thing in the morning before you were even half-awake, of the contrast between black curls and blond waves, dark skin and light, innocence and experience, and if somehow joined, the two of them could share knowledge without bitterness and restore sweetness without gullibility. And because she wasn't in love with Kaylee, she didn't watch Kaylee and Simon together sometimes with trepidation, wondering what Simon might do if he were ever forced to make a choice, as the universe would probably (inevitably) make him.

Zoe never fell in love with Inara. She'd never really swung that way -- well, even after a few tries it still hadn't seemed that appealing, so she'd assumed she didn't anyway -- and she felt off-balance around Inara, too grimy and glum and grim, not perfumed and willowy and surrounded by fabulous silks and tiny bowls of scalding hot sweet tea, with every look, every gesture, every glance, a weapon. "I heard if you wanted a dress, you'd want one with some slink," Inara had said to her once. "You should come by of an afternoon we're not shooting at someone or being shot up -- I have some that'd look wonderful on you. Very slinky." "I'd love to....let's just pick a time when Jayne's off-ship, all right?" Zoe had replied. "When he decides he wants in on something, he can be awful pestering about it."

Which was all a lie, because after they lost Book, and after she lost Wash, she loved them all. She loved them all because they'd loved him too, and like her, they remembered him, and she loved the parts of him in them she could still hear and see. She loved them because they knew her when she'd been with him, too -- they could tell the separation was illusory, that he was really still right there beside her, just that now he was only in her head. She loved River and Mal for flying Serenity, and Jayne and Inara and Simon for being crew, and Kaylee for being Serenity's heart, because as long as they had Serenity, she had Wash, and all of them, too. The sum of them all together still held Wash somehow, even though he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Repost and slight revision of a 2013 fic. I didn't realize until after I'd written this (it was originally a commentfic) I'd left out Book -- I loved the character, but I wrote it right after seeing the movie, so it was a little hard to resurrect him in my imagination.


End file.
